Projecting Change: Empire State Building

In 2011, Louie Psyhoyos, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker of “The Cove”, tapped Obscura Digital to help inspire a movement within his new film Racing Extinction.

Featuring the work of many visionaries, Racing Extinction draws attention to one of the biggest stories in the world that most people don’t know about. The eco-documentary, touted by critics as “captivating,” “forceful,” “skillful,” and “beautiful” tells the story of impending 6th mass extinction. However, as a scientist says in the movie, “this time, humanity is the asteroid.”

On Saturday, August 1st, 2015, OPS and Obscura took to the sky with a first-of-its-kind live video projection that illuminated the Empire State Building with beautiful, inspiring imagery of endangered species as never seen before. The towering images, more than 350 feet tall and 186 feet wide, and covering 33 floors of the iconic building drew attention to the creatures’ plight against mass extinction. Sia and J. Ralph produced and released a song, “One Candle”, specifically for the event. The show was captured, edited, and prominently featured as the uplifting ending of the film. This first-of-its-kind event generated headlines with over 1 billion impressions in worldwide media coverage.

Racing Extinction debuted on Discovery Channel December 2nd to a global audience in over 220 countries. The documentary was watched by over 17 million people worldwide on its premiere night and over 35 million viewers overall.